The Beastly Bride

The Beastly Bride: Tales of the Animal People is the fourth anthology in Terri Windling and Ellen Datlow's Mythic Fiction Series. The anthology contains tales and poems of animal-human transformation by writers including Gregory Frost, Jeanine Hall Gailey, Ellen Kushner, Tanith Lee, Delia Sherman and Jane Yolen. You can read the preface to the anthology here.

My copy hasn't arrived yet but I wanted to post about the book now because this week Charles Tan has been interviewing the writers who have contributed to the anthology for SF Signal and Terri Windling has been collecting the links to those interviews here. It's fascinating to be able to read about the creative process the writers went though, and to find out about their inspirations and thoughts on the Beastly Bride concept.

Midori Snyder has also collected together links to the interviews so far and links to a lovely selection of essays in the Journal of Mythic Arts Archives which relate to the subject. Shape Shifters: Art Inspired by Animal-Human Transformation Myths is another treasure from the JoMA site not to be missed and I'd also recommend Marina Warner's essay on animals in fairy tales. And if all that hasn't whetted your appetite enough there are also some reviews up here and here.

Also on Terri Windling's blog this week people from all over the world have been sending in the view from their window. A lot of the people work with fairy tales or in other realms of fantasy and art and it's wonderful to see so many distinctive views (I did send mine in and yes it is a bit grim looking compared to all the rural idylls but I like it anyway!).



The beautiful swan maiden painting in this post is by Romina Perez. You can see more of her work on her blog and website. (The image is used with permission). And if you'd like to find out more about swan maidens there's a wonderful selection of their tales here.